A version of this bike was stolen from me 2 years ago. I didn’t recognize that I had a good thing and just left it on the porch of my house unlocked one evening. The next morning, it was gone. It took me a long time to find another Bianchi San Jose with this color way. Celeste Blue. Every month, I’d do a search on Facebook marketplace for a San Jose and to my luck, 2 years in, I saw one in Orlando a few months ago. It was perfect because I would be passing through there on my home from work in Palm Beach.

All I wanted was the frame of the bike, but the guy didn’t know how to take apart the bike so I just took the whole thing back with me in the trunk with all my camera gear. 8 hours later, I’m back in Charlotte and I stripped the bike down to just the frame and took it to the bike shop, Charlotte Cycles, to get all the new parts put in.

I decided to go for the Michelin Power Cups instead of Continental to keep the price of the new build a little lower, but ended up loving the tires and can hardly tell the difference between the GP5000s. Overall, I changed out the bottom bracket, front and rear brakes, crankset, wheels, headset, stem, seat post, seat, handlebars….everything. This ended up being one expensive single speed bike!

I love me a good 0 degree offset seat post. The bike is nimble, relatively fast and most importantly, smooth and easy to ride. It’s the perfect around town bike and I’m happy that it’s finally in my possession again. I really missed it.